Justice and Mercy
by Tyanilth
Summary: *NSFW* Companion piece to The Hourglass, that comes immediately after Chapter 20, written for all those who just knew that Muirnara and Loghain had to sort things out sooner or later. M rated for mature themes. Zevran would say about time too.


_**Author's note. This is an extra chapter of The Hourglass, set immediately after Chapter 20, and presented here separately because of its M rating. It can be read as a stand alone, but it is strongly recommended that you do read chapters 19 and 20 of The Hourglass to make sense of what exactly is going on. (Or of course, read the whole thing, and wonder how the pair of them spent twenty chapters trying to get to this point.) Unashamed smut warning. Enjoy :) Oh, if anyone was wondering afterwards just what Zevran's advice to Loghain was, go and have a look at my short piece entitled Late Watch :)**_

Loghain held Muirnara for only a few seconds, then he stepped away from her and sat down on the edge of the bed. She watched him, shaking slightly. He studied her with an impassive face, then pointed to the small writing table. "Bring me the belt you offered to me."

Forcing her fear down, she walked over to the table, lifted the strap and brought it back to him, offering it to him as she had done a few minutes before, folded and laid flat on both palms as she would have offered him a sword blade. He lifted it from her hands and looked at it for a moment, then looked back at her. "So. You consider that you have wronged me so deeply, that this is an appropriate response, do you?"

Her mouth was dry. She swallowed and answered him. "Yes."

He fingered the worn leather, it was the same belt that he had used to bind her, that night in Ostagar when she was poisoned. "This then is your judgement, upon yourself?"

"Yes." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"Very well then." He stood up, and pointed to the wooden chair by the hearth, a heavy piece of carved oak with a high back, with a look of age about it, over a hundred years of smoke from fire and candles had darkened that wood. "Strip and brace yourself on the back of that chair."

Taking her clothes off in front of him seemed strangely unreal, she had become in some way detached from what was happening to her. The shirt went first, she folded it carefully and laid it on the cushioned seat of the chair. Her breastband followed it, her fingers so clumsy that she snapped one of the clasps trying to open it. The trousers were already slipping down her hips without the belt, she stepped out of them, shed her socks and smallclothes and piled them with the rest. She looked at the chair for a moment, trying to judge how best to obey his order, then took hold of the two smooth orbs that crowned the chair back, one in each hand with her arms braced straight and her head lowered between her arms, leaning slightly forward. She closed her eyes and willed her rapid breathing to slow.

The first stroke of the belt fell across her buttocks and her left thigh like frozen fire, almost painless as it landed, and then flaming agony a second later. She had taken enough wounds in battle to know that this had not broken the skin, but it had forced a short scream from her, and she bit down hard on her lower lip, she would not, would not cry out, this was her choice. And suddenly a memory hit her like lightning out of a clear sky, almost blocking out the second blow as it fell.

_Ostagar, that day that Duncan took me there. He had freed me after we had spoken to Cailan, told me where the Grey Warden encampment was, asked me to find Alistair before dusk, given me money to see the quartermaster and buy supplies for myself. I had been wandering aimlessly after I bought those supplies and dumped them near Duncan's tent. And I had come across a unit of soldiers, wearing the Gwaren wyvern on their shields, drawn up in formation near the walls. Curious even in my numbed grief, I had gone closer to see, and Ser Cauthrien had intercepted me._

_"Teyrn Loghain has sentenced a soldier to flogging, and the sentence is being carried out. I do not think you want to go any closer, my lady."_

_I ignored her and walked nearer, she came with me. The soldiers parted to let us both by. There was a man chained between two whipping posts, clinging to the straps, his body half hanging as though he could no longer keep his feet. I saw the lash fall, and a new line of blood down the bare skin of his back, and then I realised that it was the Teyrn himself administering the punishment. Loghain was known to me by sight fairly well, even out of his Orlesian plate armour, but it amazed me that he was here, rather than just having handed the punishment detail over to a sergeant-at-arms as my father would have done._

_I must have said some of that out loud, because Cauthrien answered without turning her head, her eyes fixed on the two figures in the centre. "The Teyrn has always said that if you have to hand out a sentence like this, then you owe it to your men to do it yourself, and not to pass it to an underling. If you are the commander, then no matter what your men do, the final responsibility is yours, because you chose them, and you trained them, and you have clearly failed them in some way, if one of them has done something bad enough to warrant this."_

_I turned to look at her and saw her own body flinch as the final blow of the flogging landed on the back of the unfortunate soldier, and I knew in that instant that once it had been her between those posts, in some other place and some other time. I did not ask her what this man had done, and I would not have dared to ask her how it had happened to her. I knew from my lessons on history and politics that this sort of punishment was rare in Gwaren's army, far rarer than in Highever's, and reserved for the most grave of offences. I watched Loghain go to the whipping posts and unbuckle the cuffs, the soldier dropped to his knees and Loghain raised him, turning him so they stood face to face. None of us could hear what they were saying, but you could see the pain on the soldier's face turning to surprise, and then to something that was hard to name, but came close to...love? Cauthrien whispered something under her breath. "That is a man who would die now, rather than disappoint the Teyrn a second time."_

_I did not remember this at the time, but that was how I knew that Loghain told me the truth when he said to me that night in his tent that he had not known of Howe's intentions towards my family. Because he had called Bryce Cousland friend for nearly three decades. If he had thought my father a traitor, he would never have sent Howe. He would have done it himself._

The third blow snapped her back to reality and drew a deep groan from her as she braced herself again and willed herself to silence. Loghain laid down another three strokes on her back and thighs and then tossed the belt down beside her. She took a long, sobbing breath and slowly and painfully straightened her back, as she turned she almost fell, and his hands were there under her arms, holding her facing him as he had held that soldier.

"If that was your judgement on what you had done, then that is ended. And now, we have both done something to the other tonight that was not fair, and not forgivable. Let that be the end of it, for both of us. Because something else has been given to us tonight, the possibility of a future." Gently, with his fingertips, he wiped away the couple of tears that glittered on the edge of her eyelashes. "I do not know how much you intended that punishment for yourself or for me. But I think we are done punishing each other. And whatever future we have, whether it ends tomorrow, or whether. Maker willing, we get the years that a Grey Warden is permitted, let us both remember this, and let this stand for all the times we could otherwise hurt each other. It is done already, enough is enough."

She nodded to that, trembling, and raised a hand to softly touch his face, he caught her hand and pressed a kiss into the palm. "And since you appear to remember what I told you about the choices here being mine, I choose not to waste any more of this future that has been handed back to me." With that, he scooped her into his arms, ignoring the slight hiss she gave at the pressure on her welted thighs, and carried her across the room to drop her onto the soft goosedown mattress, then stripped off his own shirt and cast it aside, standing and gazing at her. "Maker's breath, but you are beautiful."

Alistair had said the same words to her once, but in his voice there had been the reverent reserve that he might have used to describe a statue of Andraste. Loghain's voice was darker, there was a hint even of laughter in it, the voice of a man who sees something in front of him that he greatly desires, and knows is within his reach. He reached down to her, caught her wrists and raised them above her head, crossing them there as if tied. "Now, keep them there, unless I give you permission to move, girl. Don't make me waste time trying to find where I threw that belt."

She was about to ask him a question, then it ended in a whimper as his hands slid over her body, caressing her thighs, curving around her full hips, trailing up her waist. The groan became a gasp as he cupped her breasts and then his hands were replaced by his mouth, tongue trailing a series of kisses over the scar that crossed one of them, then tasting her nipples one at a time, biting lightly and then soothing the bites with kisses again. She fought the almost irresistable urge to break the position that he had placed her in, her wrists straining as if they were indeed bound, when every instinct was pulling her to cradle his head in her arms, run her nails over his shoulders, she gave a whimper of frustration that she had not known she was going to utter, and heard his answering laugh.

_Holy Andraste, I never knew what this was like...what in the Maker's name is he doing..._

And that blasphemous thought ended in a wordless wail as he trailed his tongue down her stomach to nuzzle through the damp curls covering her mound, found that tiny nub of aching want and went to work on it with tongue and lips and occasionally teeth in a manner that had her writhing and crying out incoherent pleas that he completely ignored, then she felt a finger slide inside her, then two. With that intrusion she bucked against him and came with a shudder down her whole body, her back arching off the bed. His laughter rumbled against her. "So eager, my girl? I must have been truly out of my mind not have taken you to bed before now. And even now you are still obedient..." His mouth left her and she whimpered, then realised that he was stripping his trousers off, he caught hold of her waist and lifted her into his arms, whispering in her ear "Now you may move," as he eased her onto him, still standing. Her legs wrapped around his waist, clinging to him as he filled her, she cried out again, and her freed hands clawed at his back, he answered with a rumble and took a step to press her up against the cold stone of the wall, thrusting into her with a force that had her breathless and crying. Somewhere in the middle of it all she found herself orgasming again only a few seconds before she felt him cry out, and groan, and climax inside her in a flurry of thrusts that had a bruising intensity against the wall where the cold stone pressed against the welts left by the belt.

It seemed like a half minute that had had the duration of forever when he eased himself out of her and lifted her down onto the bed, then settled himself beside her against the pillows, pulling her into the crook of his arm. She made a small murmur of contentment and he chuckled, stroking her hair. She peered up at him. "What's so funny?"

"You are." He curled a strand of hair around his finger. "Even with something we both wanted, you had to fight all the way before I finally got you into a bed. I never thought I would need to give you a sound thrashing just to get you here."

Her mouth curled in a half smile, he ran a finger over one of the marks from the belt, seemingly enjoying the gentle whimper she gave. He laughed again. "And I need to remember that I am not a young man of twenty any more, choosing to take you up against a wall for the first time was a piece of showing off that I am likely to suffer for later."

That drew a laugh from her and she rolled onto her stomach, dropping a kiss on the side of his neck. "So perhaps the stamina that Wardens gain from the Joining has other useful side effects?"

"Minx." The slap that he lightly laid on her thigh made her wince, and then he rolled her back over to face away from him, curving his body around her and pulling a quilt over them both, a possessive arm tucking her against him. "Now, sleep. We have a predawn start and a forced march waiting for us, and only a few hours to get some slumber in before those."

She murmured something that sounded like agreement and closed her eyes. He dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck and she drifted off to sleep to the sound of his breathing, and the warmth of his body pressed against her.

When she awoke, he was no longer in the bed. She blinked and propped herself up on one elbow, the sky was still dark outside the room, but the candles on the washstand were lit and Loghain was seated at the mirror, shaving himself, a foam of soap visible in the small bowl beside him, his razor in his hand gliding carefully down one cheek. Oddly, this was something she had never watched him do before, he had just disappeared off each morning and come back clean shaven and well scrubbed, from whatever river or stream they had found to camp near. As he finished, he noticed her reflection in the mirror, dipped his razor in the water to clean it, and turned back to her. "Spying on me again, Muirnara? I thought you were still asleep. It's still a full hour and a half before dawn."

She laughed. "I don't know about spying. I was just watching you."

His chuckle answered hers. "I doubt that in an interrogation that you would be saved by that particular excuse." A thought seemed to cross his mind and he stood up and pointed to the stool. "Come here and sit down."

With some caution she climbed out of bed and padded barefoot across the cold stone floor to join him, easing herself onto the wooden stool with a grunt of slight pain, it would be a day or two before she would able to comfortably sit down again on a hard surface. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

With a wry smile he picked up his razor. "Having spent all night with my nose pressed against the nape of your neck, I can tell you that several weeks having gone by, you will be complaining in a week about that helm not fitting again. I nearly sneezed several times when you moved in your sleep." A fingertip traced through the inch of soft hair that had regrown at her nape, she made a slight noise and leaned back into the caress. "And at least this time we can reasonably assume that Leliana and Wynne are not about to burst in in the middle of it."

She laughed at that, and obediently tilted her head forward, shivering as he covered her neck in a layer of cold foam and went to work in a series of delicate strokes of the razor which took substantially longer than last time, since it appeared to be necessary for him to drop a kiss on each part of her neck that he had cleared of soap before going on to the next part. By the time he finished and carefully washed her bare neck with a cloth dipped in cold water she was whimpering in arousal again, and yet was totally unprepared for him to take her by the shoulders and push her onto her stomach across the bottom of the bed. She could feel him behind her, pushing her legs apart, there was a moment of panic, she had never done this before, Alistair had never...and then she arched her back and pushed back at him and wailed as he slid into her in one long, smooth stroke, the heat of his body burning against her in the cold air of the room. She heard him growl something in her ear that sounded like "Mine." and then her world exploded as his teeth caught the shaved skin at the back of her neck and bit down sharply, and both of them came in a shuddering moment, quick and hard and urgent.

He was laughing again as he pulled her to her feet and kissed her. "You know, one of these days I will have to tell that elf he did indeed get one thing right."

"What on earth did Zevran say to you?"

"Never you mind, girl. Just be grateful I didn't take a few of his other suggestions."

She blushed at that, even without knowing what those suggestions were. He chuckled and traced a finger along her cheekbone. "Anyway, one way or another, in a week or so this will all be over. You can start growing your hair out then, if that's what you want."

"Oh, I don't know." The look she gave him was pure mischief, and reminded him of how young she still was. "I might even keep it like this, there seem to be certain...advantages."

"Shameless minx." He kissed her again. "Even you cannot drag me back to bed for a third bout. Grey Warden stamina has its limits. And we have a long day ahead."

He collected his shirt and tossed her own shirt towards her, just as a plaintive cry came from outside the door. "General? General Loghain? Erm...Warden! I really don't want to disturb you, but Bann Teagan sent me up to bring you hot water for washing, and I was just trying to knock on your door and this Mabari won't let me in, and...oh, Maker's Breath, he's got hold of my nuts!" The pitch of the voice was getting rapidly higher.

Muirnara and Loghain both looked at each other and burst out laughing. Loghain wrapped a towel around his waist and went to rescue the servant. "Remind me next time, that that Mabari of yours has a very literal mind."


End file.
